Clock.



PATENTED JAN. 30, 1906.

kWn E. PORTER. CLOCK.

APPLICATION FILED FEB.10. 1905.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

WILSON E. PORTER, OF NEV HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO NEW HAVEN CLOCK OO., OF NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, A CORPORATION.

CLOCK.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan, 30, 1906.

To all whom, t nea/y concern:

Be it known that I, VVrLsoN E. PORTER, a citizen of the United States, residing at New I-Iaven, in the county of New Haven and State of Connecticut, have invented a new and useful Improvement in. Clocks; and I do hereby declare the following, when taken in connec tion with the accompanying drawings and the figures of reference marked thereon, to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same, and which said drawings constitute part of this specification, and represent, in#

Figure 1, a view in front elevation of a clock-movement constructed in accordance with my invention with the train-wheels shown in broken lines; Fig. 2, a view thereof in side elevation with the sleeves on two of its pillars in vertical section and portions of the intermediate supplemental plate broken away, Fig. 3, a broken sectional view showing one o1l the arbors and the wheel and pinion arranged to rotate upon it; Fig. 4, a detached view, in side elevation, on a reduced scale, of the intermediate supplemental plate.

My invention relates to an improvement particularly designed for use in the construen tion of clocks of the so-calle( Lmarine type, but not limited to such use, the object being to secure the economy, lightness, and stiflness resulting from the use of sheet-steel movement-plates. In this connection it may be well to explain that the attempts heretofore made to use sheet steel plates in constructing clocks have resulted in failure mainly owing to the fact that the running of steel pinions in the steel plates causes both to wear; nor, on account of the expense, has it been found feasible to bush steel plates with brass or other equivalent bushing material.

With the end in view of making sheet-steel plates available for use in the construction of clocks my invention consists in certain details of construction and combinations of parts, as will be hereinafter described, and pointed out in the claim.'

In carrying out my invention as herein shown I employ a sheet-metal front movement or main plate 2, a sheet steel back movement or main plate 3, and a sheet-steel supplemental intermediate plate 4, arranged in a vertical plane parallel with the planes of the plates 2 and 3 and held in place by being interposed between the inner ends of sleeves 5 and 6, themselves interposed between the said plates 2 and 3 and mounted upon the pillars 7, employed to secure the same together, these pillars, as shown, being riveted in the front movement-plate 2 and passed through holes 4a in the supplemental plate 4 and through the back movement-plate 3 and having their rear ends threaded for the reception of nuts S. As shown, three of the pillars take part lin supporting the supplemental plate, which will be supported by more or less of them or by other means, according to its size and position and other considerations of convenience, &c.

The supplemental plate 4 is used in conjunction with one or the other, or both, of the front and back plates 2 and 3 for the support of the arb ors 9 on which the wheels and pinions turn. It is not necessary that all ofthe running parts of the movement be mounted on arbors corresponding to the said arbors 9, but only those parts which rotate the most rapidly and have the smallest bearings and are located so distant from the spring that it exerts so little power upon them that they are retarded unduly or even stopped in case any extra friction is imposed upon them. Thus in the clock shown the only wheels and pinions so mounted are the time escapementwheel 10 and the escapement-pinion 11, the fourth wheel 12 and the fourth pinion 13, the third wheel 14 and the third pinion 15, and the alarm escapement-wheel 16 of the alarmtrain. As shown, the arbors 9 extend from front to rear through suitable holes 17, formed in the front movement-plate 2, and into suitable holes 18, formed in the intermediate supplemental plate 4. Preferably the arbors 9 will be fixed against rotation; but no harm would be done if they should not be fixed against rotation, provided they do not rotate constantly or at least at the rate of the running parts turning upon them. No harm will result from the turning of the arbors 9 unless they cut into their bearingeholes; but if there is friction enough to cause such cutting this friction will stop their rotation and leave them at rest while the pinions and wheels mounted on them go on turning. As shown in Fig. 3, the arbor 9 is centrally cut away, as at 9a, to reduce the friction upon it of the pinion 13 of the wheel 12; but this is not necessary, although desirable. Also, as shown in Fig. 3, the forward end of the arbor is reduced to form a trunnion 9b, the end of which IOO IOS

:ls upset to form a head 9C, the shoulder at the base of the trunnion and the said .head holding the arbor against endwise movement 5 but the particular construction of the arbor may be varied as found desirable. The Wheels and pinions, which are made of brass or equivalent material, are designed to turn upon these arbors, so that brass has moving bearing upon steel just as in ordinary clocks the steel pinions have moving bearing in the brass plates. Under my improved construction, therefore, of using an intermediate supplemental plate and employing arbors for the Wheels and pinions to turn upon I secure the advantages resulting from the use of steel movement-plates Without the disadvantages which have heretofore attended their use.

It is apparent that in carrying out my iny such departures therefreli'i as 'liairlb'f fall with-` in the spirit and scope ol' my invention.

Having fully described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

In a clock, the combination with sheetmetal front and back movement-plates, of a sheet-steel supplemental plate located between the same, arbors extending between and journaled at their respective ends in the said front and rear movement-plates, sh ort arbors journaled at their respective ends in the supplemental movement-plate and in one or the other of the front and back movementplates, and Wheels and pinions mounted upon the arbors last mentioned so as to turn thereupon independently thereof, the said Wheels and pinions being made of a softer metal than the said short arbors.

In testimony whereof I have signed this specification in the presence of two subscribing Witnesses.

WILSON E. PORTER Witnesses:

CLARA Il. I/VEED, GEORGE O. SEYMOUR. 

